II. Tony Jones advised those at StN to “be loyal to this tribe” and “put less words in scare quotes. Just answer the goddamn question.” I’ve been thinking about that. The catch of course is how to determine who is in the tribe. Being part of the vituperative world that academia so often is forces you to get used to the idea that some people are brilliant comrades working toward similar goals and yet can be very difficult people. That’s easy enough to spot and work with. On the other hand, a difference of goals has a tendency to inflame tensions no matter how good our intentions are. That’s easy enough to recognize, but very difficult to work around. So how do we decide who is going toward a similar destination via different route or who has departed for a different course altogether?

III. This far-too-simplified schema is how I tend to think of Christian theologies. Each of these has a difficult time talking with either of the other two:

A) Confessional pastoral and lay theologies

This is the filler of many sermons, coffee house conversations, and Barnes & Noble bestseller lists. It is not sophisticated, but it is theology “on the ground.” You know it when you hear it. And it absolutely has to be engaged, but it is more and more difficult to dialogue with the more you learn theology.

B) Confessional academic theologies

This is the material produced by the seminaries and universities. Along with Biblical studies, academic theology is expansive, engaged with history, systematic, and (hopefully) philosophical. My assumption is that every future pastor and/or theologian makes a decision at some point in their studies about whether or not they will even try to communicate the material they are learning, because more academic theologies can feel very intimidating and threatening to parishioners who are not reading theology/philosophy. It is meant to be theology “for the church” in the roundabout way of developing coherent, esoteric systems of thought. I put Missio Alliance here. Again, I profess my ignorance of Missio Alliance, but my impression from those I’m in dialogue with tells me MA is a very confessionally Christian group.

C) Radical, political, and process theologies

This third category is theology in the aftermath of Altizer, Whitehead, Derrida, Schmitt, Badiou, Žižek, and of course the two living JCs. This group often treats theology as a void that can only be accessed by the various disciplines on the periphery. There are certainly confessional types among them (particularly within post-liberal or process types), but its also not at all uncommon to find entirely atheistic political theologies in this camp. Subverting the Norm asked a broader question about postmodern theology, but since radical theology ended up being such an important theme, I put Subverting the Norm mostly – but not entirely- here.

VI. Conservatives, liberals, and radicals see very different problems as the main point to address. The primary antagonism we select directs our energy. Sometimes disparate theologies can work together on social issues here and there, but on a long enough timeline they are driven apart because the antagonisms they mean to address are mutually incompatible.

Forgive the caricatures, but political conservatives locate a primary antagonism along lines of moral purity or cultural/religious loyalty. Liberals locate the primary antagonisms along some combination of class, race, and gender or whatever else liberals are upset about. Both liberals and conservatives tend to agree on capitalism (with minor skirmishes over neo-classical or Keynesian models), and thus we get the stereotypical similarities between platforms. Radical and/or Marxian perspectives locate the primary antagonism almost exclusively along class lines, which is why we are always complaining about capitalism. And at Subverting the Norm, there was a definite tension between liberals who wanted to talk about how to be more inclusive and radicals who think theology (no matter how inclusive) does not matter if it doesn’t occupy politics.

So can Missio Alliance and Subverting the Norm work together? I definitely hope so. I haven’t even figured out if StN’s mix of radicals and liberals can work together in the long term. But if we can be serious about exactly how confessional (or not) we expect a theology to be, and if we can isolate the antagonism(s) our theologies address, then we are at least on a path toward an answer. And that answer has implications that are much more significant than two conferences.

Tad DeLay is a PhD student in philosophy of religion and theology at Claremont Graduate University. http://taddelay.com

Based on your schema, then, post-modern (what you call radical, political, and process) theology does not currently live in the churches, to reprise the question from Subverting the Norm. Jack Caputo's answer of "perhaps" begs the question "How?" which was echoed in the many requests at various sessions for practical methods for incorporating radical theology into congregational life.

In order for radical/political/process theology to live in the churches, it would have to migrate from its current position of C in the schema, to a new position B in which it resides alongside confessional theology as a fully respected viable alternative, which would eventually trickle down into A by the academic training of pastors. I don't see confessional theology being completely eliminated. Instead, I hope for a day when the confessional and the radical can live together as brothers and sisters in Christ.

@ReneeAxtell I actually surprised myself at Subverting the Norm by coming away with a more positive impression regarding the possibility of postmodern theology living in the church. I still think postmodern and radical theologies are a hard sell if you make the underlying claims explicitly, but I know lots of radical theological types that slip radical thought into their churches very slowly and responsibly. I don't think a theology *must* convert to a confessional variety in order to preach well. (and I definitely agree that confessional theology is not going to be eliminated anytime soon).